A Man Downstairs
A Novel
- Publisher
- Penguin Group Canada
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2024
- Category
- Psychological, Crime, Suspense
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780735242722
- Publish Date
- Mar 2024
- List Price
- $24.95
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Description
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
What if the childhood you remember isn’t really what happened at all?
“A gripping story of troubled relationships, mental illness, and buried secrets with a murder at its heart. . . . Clever, twisty, and chilling." —Shari Lapena, #1 bestselling author of Everyone Here is Lying
From the acclaimed author of An Unthinkable Thing and Hideaway, a breath-stopping novel of suspense about a woman tormented by memories of the past and threatened by long-held secrets in the present.
Molly Wynters has moved back to her small hometown to care for her father, recently felled by a stroke and no longer able to communicate. She is ready to make a fresh start with her son after her divorce, but is haunted by both old events and new realities in her childhood home.
What Molly recalls of her young life with her father is full of love and care, even though a violent trauma defined her childhood: when she was a young girl, she witnessed her mother’s murder, and her testimony—“There was a man downstairs”—sent a teenager to prison. This tragic episode is still very much alive in the culture of the town, and the more Molly remembers, the more she fears that what she said on the stand all those years ago might not have been the whole truth.
After Molly, a trained therapist, volunteers for a local helpline, the threats begin. At first they seem random, but soon Molly realizes that she is a target, and even those closest to her seem suspicious, especially as unsuspected links between them emerge. More than one life was destroyed on that horrific long-ago day, and now someone intends to hold Molly accountable.
With its gripping descent into the shadowy corners of the human psyche, A Man Downstairs is both an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride and a masterful exploration of the fragile nature of memory.
About the author
Nicole grew up in Upper Gullies, Newfoundland, with her five siblings and parents, John and Nancy Lundrigan. She attended Queen Elizabeth Regional High School in nearby Foxtrap. During her final year at QERHS, she enjoyed a semester of school in Amiens, France where she lived with a Baron and Baroness in the Chateau de Prouzel.
After high school, Nicole moved to Fredericton, and earned a BSc from the University of New Brunswick. The summer after graduation, she resided in the small community of Morawhanna, Guyana, where she helped to rebuild a schoolhouse, volunteered with a doctor bringing healthcare to remote villages, and assisted in a sea turtle conservation program on Shell Beach. Upon returning to Canada, Nicole attended Saint Mary’s University (Halifax) and received a BA (honours) in anthropology. During her time in Halifax, she worked on an archaeological dig which involved the removal and analysis of skeletal remains beneath the Little Dutch Church. In 1996, she moved to Ontario, and completed an MSc from the University of Toronto with a focus on physical anthropology. Her main area of interest was understanding the conditions affecting the degradation of DNA in postmortem skeletal remains.
Shortly after graduation, she began freelance writing and her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Reader’s Digest, Mothering: The Natural Family Living Magazine, Law and Order: Police Management, and the Halifax Daily Herald. She is the author of four novels: Unraveling Arva, Thaw, The Seary Line, and Glass Boys. Her literary fiction has been selected as a top ten pick by Canada’s national newspaper the Globe and Mail, was long-listed for the Relit Award, and given honourable mention for the Sunburst Award.
She resides in Ontario with her husband and three children.
Editorial Reviews
“A gripping story of troubled relationships, mental illness and buried secrets with a murder at its heart—who really killed young mother Edie Wynters in the small town of Aymes almost forty years ago? Her now grown daughter is about to find out. . . . A Man Downstairs is a clever, twisty and chilling read."
—Shari Lapena, international bestselling author of Everyone Here is Lying
"A sharply observed, layered mystery about obsession, desperation, and the dark secrets small towns keep to protect their own.”
—Robyn Harding, bestselling author of The Haters and The Drowning Woman
"Combining sharp, assured prose with boundless humanity, this deftly plotted novel is a triumph. I stayed up all night racing toward a conclusion that provided more than just the deep satisfaction of a whodunit solved—it gave me chills, and made me think. Now all I want is another Nicole Lundrigan novel to become addicted to!"
—Marissa Stapley, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky
"Lundrigan is that rare breed of thriller writer who can weave a cunning plot twist while mesmerizing us all with her language. A Man Downstairs is a taut psychological nightmare with a poet's soul."
—Roz Nay, bestselling author of The Offing and Our Little Secret
"A dark, disturbing drama suffused with gritty suspense, A MAN DOWNSTAIRS is gorgeously written. With astute and terrifying insights into the human condition, Nicole Lundrigan expertly weaves a gripping tale about fractured relationships and the secrets swirling around a small community, rocked by a decades-old murder. The multiple POVs are mesmerizing and the prose is poetic in this intensely captivating and unforgettable read."
—Samantha M. Bailey, USA Today and #1 national bestselling author of A Friend in the Dark
“Lundrigan has a strong command of character and pace, and she is adept at keeping the screws of her tale tightening as she moves [A Man Downstairs] inexorably toward its climax.”
—Toronto Star
“[A] flawlessly written psychological thriller with lots of clever twists and turns. . . . The dialogue flows naturally, colourfully and masterly. [A Man Downstairs] lifts Lundrigan to an elite level of page turning storyteller.”
—Toronto Times